I know this has been mentioned far too many times than one could even imagine to think, but I think the real problem with what has caused some boards to slow down, is not sites like facebook in them selves but the fact that mobile users, who are getting more and more by the day have the inability to use the browsers on their phones, instead they use the application for social network sites, which in the main means if it's not on facebook it doesn't exist, sure if you post a link to a social media site that leads to your board people will see it, they will either like it and move on, they may even join said board, but once that link on your timeline gets bumped down and they have lost all contact with the site, with most people failing to check emails, even the notifications from the forums will be ignored, it does worry me that while there are advances in technology, there seems to be a deterioration in the end users ability to go to a browser type in an address, save it to their favourites and keep check of their emails, however on the flipside there are still people who refuse to use social network sites, that being said some forums will still be quite busy, really how I should end this statement is............................ there is more to the internet than facebook, facebook is just another website on the internet..

There a many forums I log into that have 2,000 users right at that time!! And they get 100,000 visitors a day. This is in 2017. Mobile phones, social media, etc. is not affect these sites. If they are, I'd take 100,000 visitors a day!

How do they do it:

1. They've been around a while (10 years plus) and have built up hundreds of thousands of pages that are in the search engines. If you get 1 click on each page, you get 300,000 visitors in a day!

2. they cover a relavant topic.

Everyone wants to open a forum that has 50,000 visitors the first week. It took the big dogs years to build their traffic. It will take you years too...

It's definitely harder these days for general chat forums. I think the forums targeting a niche/specific topic have weathered the social media storm a bit better - and I think you are absolutely right about the prevalence of mobile users. For mobile, simplicity is king - whereas traditional forums are geared towards features and functionality. Reading long topics with quotes and all the rest of it is fine on a PC, but inherently tough on mobile.

It ebbs and flows though. Who knows where Facebook will be 10 years from now - it's just a company so it's at the mercy of the free market. If something better comes along it will be displaced just like MySpace was. Whereas with discussion boards, they are actual communities run by regular people. People who can be influenced by the members of that community because relationships get formed between the admins and moderators and users.

What really did surprise me though is to see the IMDB forums close. If there was ever a textbook example of a successful niche forum, I'd have thought it would be IMDB. But I guess the reason they closed was because IMDB started to be treated more like a business than a community - if anyone was following that you will have noticed in the closure announcement the users were referred to as "customers" - how sad. I wouldn't be surprised if a massive new user-oriented film and TV community rises from the ashes in this case.

The IMDb message boards were disabled on February 20, 2017. This included the Private Message system. IMDb is passionately committed to providing innovative ways for our hundreds of millions of users to engage and communicate with one another. We will continue to enhance our current offerings and launch new features in 2017 and beyond that will help our customers communicate and express themselves in meaningful ways.

actually now that you said that, I have seen exactly that on Facebook groups and in the end ..... the FB group is destroyed by the Admin(s) removing one member after another and taking it down to zero - real shame

I think part of the problem was forums were so slow to adapt to smaller screen resolutions. I just upgraded my forum from phpbb 3.0 to 3.2 and it is amazing how good it is to use on mobile now. Before you basically had to use landscape mode all the time. But with the new responsive styles it is actually better to use in portrait mode.

I have also ended up disabling signatures on my forums. People complained at first, but now the forum is so much more bearable without looking at the same image half a dozen times in a topic.

One thing I am totally against is adding thanks/like system on a forum. I view it has a huge negative and will decrease participation. I've seen other forums add it and it seems to have made those forums worse. Would you rather see a comment that can add to the conversation or someone's username next time the "Liked this Post" field?

I know this has been mentioned far too many times than one could even imagine to think, but I think the real problem with what has caused some boards to slow down, is not sites like facebook in them selves but the fact that mobile users, who are getting more and more by the day have the inability to use the browsers on their phones, instead they use the application for social network sites, which in the main means if it's not on facebook it doesn't exist, sure if you post a link to a social media site that leads to your board people will see it, they will either like it and move on, they may even join said board, but once that link on your timeline gets bumped down and they have lost all contact with the site, with most people failing to check emails, even the notifications from the forums will be ignored, it does worry me that while there are advances in technology, there seems to be a deterioration in the end users ability to go to a browser type in an address, save it to their favourites and keep check of their emails, however on the flipside there are still people who refuse to use social network sites, that being said some forums will still be quite busy, really how I should end this statement is............................ there is more to the internet than facebook, facebook is just another website on the internet..

Hope this is ok posted here.

~John~

EVERY subject is covered at least a hundred different ways. And I mean EVERY subject. People are spread too thin. Who would ever think twitter would work? It blows the mind. But forums are the 55 chevy of the Internet. If we can keep enough pristine specimens on the market. They'll always make a comeback. But anything else is just a new Kia. They get squashed at the junk yard every hundred thousand miles.

Yeah, but a 350 fits in nearly everything. Can be economical or a hotrod. You can get parts almost anywhere. And when called for, there's a bolt-on part to accomplish almost anything, and almost anyone, can do it. But me. I'm an idea man. I'm an expert at telling other people what's wrong with their engine. Meantime, mine is running on three cylinders, leaks oil, and can't pass inspection. I have to hire someone just to change the air filter.

I don't think it's about responsible web design, but infinitive ajax loaded content, images like human faces and some loaded content from links... Just it's not so boring. I try to resolve the same problem and don't see any other option than a personalisation of profile page and change of the design. Here, ajax is always our friend.